Past Perfect Continuous
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 06/30/2011 01:45 AM
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Past Perfect Continuous Tense
Form: Past form of auxiliary HAVE + Past Participle BE + Present Participle ( had been sitting)
Negation: We insert particle NOT after the first auxiliary verb ( had not been sitting)
Question: Inversion of the subject and the first auxiliary verb ( Had I been sitting)
Use:
1) Longer action in the past before another action in the past
* Tom had been waiting for two hours.
* John was very tired. He had been running.
* My car broke down. It hadn’t been running well for a long time.
* Had the pilot been drinking before the crash?
* I had been waiting for an hour by the time I received the reply.
2) Two actions happened in the past and we use PPC to clarify which action happened first
* Mary looked tired. I could see that she had been studying for her English test recently.
* The children were soaking wet. I knew they had been swimming in the lake.
* Police had been tracking him for years and finally caught him.
* Jones, who had been running, arrived out of breath.
* I had been practicing for two days and was ready for the concert.
3) To make conclusions
* There was a leak in the pipes, that’s why the water bill had been getting higher and higher each month.
* The teacher looked very tired. She had been marking tests all day.
* Her back was sore because she had been sitting at the computer all day.
* Sam gained weight because he had been overeating.
* Betty failed the final exam because she hadn’t been attending classes.
4) PPC can be interchangeable with the PPS without a change in meaning
* I had slept/ had been sleeping all night.
* I had lived/ had been living in Brazil before I moved to Serbia.
5) Answer the question ‘’how long’’
* How long had you been waiting for the bus to come?
* How many years had you been studying to be a teacher?
6) In third conditional to express imagined conditionals
* If I had been...
Form: Past form of auxiliary HAVE + Past Participle BE + Present Participle ( had been sitting)
Negation: We insert particle NOT after the first auxiliary verb ( had not been sitting)
Question: Inversion of the subject and the first auxiliary verb ( Had I been sitting)
Use:
1) Longer action in the past before another action in the past
* Tom had been waiting for two hours.
* John was very tired. He had been running.
* My car broke down. It hadn’t been running well for a long time.
* Had the pilot been drinking before the crash?
* I had been waiting for an hour by the time I received the reply.
2) Two actions happened in the past and we use PPC to clarify which action happened first
* Mary looked tired. I could see that she had been studying for her English test recently.
* The children were soaking wet. I knew they had been swimming in the lake.
* Police had been tracking him for years and finally caught him.
* Jones, who had been running, arrived out of breath.
* I had been practicing for two days and was ready for the concert.
3) To make conclusions
* There was a leak in the pipes, that’s why the water bill had been getting higher and higher each month.
* The teacher looked very tired. She had been marking tests all day.
* Her back was sore because she had been sitting at the computer all day.
* Sam gained weight because he had been overeating.
* Betty failed the final exam because she hadn’t been attending classes.
4) PPC can be interchangeable with the PPS without a change in meaning
* I had slept/ had been sleeping all night.
* I had lived/ had been living in Brazil before I moved to Serbia.
5) Answer the question ‘’how long’’
* How long had you been waiting for the bus to come?
* How many years had you been studying to be a teacher?
6) In third conditional to express imagined conditionals
* If I had been...